PROSPECTS AND PROBLEMS FOR MBA STUDENTS

ABSTRACT

The article focuses on the importance and significance of MBA. There are three problems being battled by Indian youth such as lack of soft skills, entrepreneurial skills and leadership skills. The article dwells at length about the same and also focuses on the differences between the leaders and the managers. At the end it called upon the youth to face the challenges squarely and soar like an eagle as eagle stands for leadership.

KEY WORDS: Why MBA? Importance of MBA, Problems for Youth, Industry Expectations, Challenges, Leaders and Managers, Overseas Indians, Conclusion & Message.

“Indian youth are strikingly more optimistic about their own future and also about the future of society. The general picture in other countries is that young people tend to be personal optimists but societal pessimists,” said Mats Lindgren, CEO and founder of Kairos Future Group .

WHY MBA?

When one of the richest persons in the world, Mr.Laxmi Niwas Mittal was asked what regret he had in life, he replied by saying that he did not do MBA. He is the only Indian who leads in a particular sector globally i.e. steel sector. He achieved success in life and made lot of wealth and yet he had one regret of not doing MBA.

MBA is one of the most sought after qualifications in India. After the completion of the graduation the students prefer to go for this qualification because it offers wide opportunities. The engineering graduates are also opting for this management qualification as it widens their mental faculties as well as provides faster career growth. As a result, we find mushrooming Business schools in India. It this context, it is essential to go in detail to find out the significance and importance of this qualification. Let us also look at various prospects and problems involved with Indian youth in this regard.

IMPORTANCE OF MBA:

Engineers are technically competent in their trade and can excel as very good engineers. But it takes them in one direction. When they are armed with MBA qualification they cannot only work as engineers but also can work as managers. In brief they turn out to be technocrats and full-fledged professionals. Acquiring management qualification will be a value addition in their career. They can work as engineers as well as managers and it paves the way for fast career growth. Besides it inculcates entrepreneurial skills and enhances the ability to stretch their imagination levels. It is not the case of engineers but also doctors and other professionally qualified people opting for this course. The advantage of management education is that any graduate can opt for this course, as it is basically management oriented with least technical orientation. This provides ample ammunition for any graduate to pursue this course.

With the growing population and economy there would be more industries and there would be need for more managers and leaders across the country. Therefore, there is growing importance and significance attached to this qualification.

PROBLEMS FOR YOUTH:

Indian youth are battled with three skills lack of soft skills, entrepreneurial skills and leadership skills. It is a cause for concern. We do not have unemployment problem rather we have umeployability problem as the freshers after passing out of their educational institutions do not have requisite skills and abilities to match up with the industry demands, standards and expectations. In this context, let us briefly know what do soft skills mean.

Soft skills are the non-domain skills that include various skills like communication skills, presentation skills, team building skills, business grace, etiquette, and related to people skills. The people should know how to deal with their clients, customers, and suppliers and should know how to behave with their subordinates, peers and superiors. People are good at their domain knowledge i.e. the area in which they are qualified and that becomes the technical knowledge, which is also known as hard skills. It is rightly said people rise because of their hard skills but fall due to lack of soft skills. The present educational system encourages more of technical and domain knowledge and less of non-domain knowledge thus resulting into unemployability.

Second problem for the youth is lack of encouragement towards entrepreneurial skills. Entrepreneurship is the process of setting up own business venture, which involves lot of risks and returns. It is not a cakewalk. It requires lot of energy and efforts. It takes active involvement round the clock because it involves having a business idea, mobilizing resources, proper execution skills and managing both internal and external forces and factors so as to pursue the passion of entrepreneurship.

Although Indian youth are interested towards taking risk the parents do not encourage them, as there are more risks involved. The parents want their children to get secured jobs and start earning steady and decent regular income. They also want their old age to be properly secured. In western countries, there are social security measures where government takes care of their citizens in old age. There are old age homes, unemployment insurance, and so many protections as they have already developed. Since India is still a developing nation we cannot afford to provide social security measures to the citizens. Therefore, it discourages the parents to discourage their children towards entrepreneurship. In the past, Indian economy was mixed economy and it did not encourage entrepreneurship skills. Ever since the opening up of Indian economy the climate is conducive for encouraging entrepreneur skills among the youth.

The third problem for the Indian youth is lack of leadership qualities. Small countries with tiny population produced leaders in various disciplines and it is very unfortunate that India with a billion plus population could not produce global leaders in proportion to the population. What ails with Indian youth?

The present educational and economic environment is not encouraging the leadership qualities. In some cases, there is dearth of talent. And in some cases, there is talent, which is not tapped to develop as leaders. We do not have sufficient training institutes that encourage leadership traits.

INDUSTRY EXPECTATIONS:

Industry looks for plug and play recruits. They want the recruited employees to be the on the toes right from the day one. They want the freshers to be industry ready so that they can be productive and useful. However, it is not the scenario. Lot of jobs are available and the industry is not getting the competent manpower to execute the tasks. There are few traits that the industry expects from the freshers. They are learnabilty – the ability and capability to learn new tools and techniques, absorbability – the ability to grasp and understand new kind of tasks, suitability - looking for the right peg in right hole. Nobody would like to have a round peg in a square hole or a square peg in a round hole. Capability – the ability to execute the challenging tasks at ease is another trait expected from the industry. And skills like adaptability, flexibility, assertiveness, team spirit, communication, leadership skills and last but not the least is the passion to learn and grow. To put it succinctly, they look for right mindset, tool set and skill set.

Infosys, the Indian IT giant started a programme titled ‘Campus Connect’ where the faculties of various institutions would be short-listed and selected and are called for Soft Skills Workshops. It is a kind of Corporate Social Responsibility. The faculties are trained free of cost who in turn would train the faculties in their respective institutions. And the faculties provide training to the students about soft skills and other skills that are needed for the students to get placed in the industry. Likewise, many IT companies are taking initiative in this regard. It is an indication that everyone is realizing the importance and significance of employability skills and its results would be felt in the near future. It is like a ripple effect.

CHALLENGES:

Students work hard and climb the ladder to reach the heights of success only then they realize that the ladder is on the wrong side of the wall. It indicates that youth lack right direction, guidance and counseling. This is so in various ways such as selection of career or setting of their goals. They set the goals because of parental or peer influence. Or sometimes because of herd instinct. In the long run it does not give any satisfaction resulting into frustration and fatigue. While planning for their career the youth should look for 4 As – Aptitude, Attitude, Abilities and Awareness. When their career is planned in this way, they can easily accomplish their goals and career aspirations.

Because of growing technology the business environment has become highly challenging and as a result the employees have to deliver their best to meet the rising demands of the customers and consumers. During this process, if any employee falls short of expectations he would be served with pink slips. There is more element of risk involved even in employment. The youth should learn to perform well or else would be perished. It is a case of ‘do or die’ situation where non-performing and inefficient employees are shown the door. There is more need for smart work rather than hard work.

LEADERS AND MANAGERS:

"Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things." Peter Drucker .

There is vast difference between the leaders and the managers. Let us look at what differentiates between the leaders and the managers. Managers are efficient while leaders are effective. Managers climb the ladder where as the leaders place the ladder on the right side of the wall. Managers are machineries while the leaders are visionaries. Leaders know what to do where as managers know how to do. Managers put in hard work where as leaders put in smart work. To put it succinctly, if managers are the actors the leaders are the directors. However, in the recent past there is growing emphasis on managerial leaders which is combination of managerial and leadership qualities and, of course, the combination of hard work and smart work.

OVERSEAS INDIANS:

Indians are doing extraordinarily well across the seas because of various reasons. Laxmi Niwas Mittal has done excellent by becoming a leader in steel sector across the globe and also one of the top five richest persons in the world. Indra Nooyi , Pepsi chief is one of the most powerful women in the world who is a symbol of success and a guiding and motivating model for Indian women managers. All these people could do it because of several reasons such as more opportunities in overseas and also probably they travel from comfort zone to effective zone. Renowned Motivational Guru Zig Zigler Zig said, “97 per cent of the people live in comfort zone and only 3 per cent of the people live in effective zone”. And success comes to the people who live in effective zone. The successful people keep shifting their orbits and reinvent themselves as per the changing conditions and scenario.

CONCLUSION:

To sum up, Indian youth definitely have an exciting future and promising career with an MBA degree. By improving and developing soft skills, entrepreneurial skills and leadership qualities they can leave a mark behind.

MESSAGE:

Education and character are the two sides of the same coin. When you have these two, you can survive and succeed in any part of the world. Success would touch your toes. Never complain like a duck and soar like an eagle as eagle stands for leadership.

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